On being ill by Virginia Woolf and Politics and the English Language George Orwell compared - Essay Example

She noted that people usually lack words to express their feelings during sickness unlike numerous words available to express love, battle, and jealousy. On the other hand, George Orwell in his article, “Politics and the English Language, he criticized the modern English writing style for its filthy and incorrect use of language. His assignment was to call people to the task of thinking clearly by using the language appropriately. At the end of his article, he gave several rules to assist and protect writers from incorrect use of language.

A concise description of similarities and differences of the essays The two are articles were mainly concerned with English language as a tool of communication, and the effect of language misuse. The two were also written to raise a voice to make English a better language in communication. The two articles were written for different audience and hence different tones. According to George, inaccurate language comes as a result of insincerity while according to Virginia; language problem in illness is as a result of negligence of illness topics.

The comparison of the articles The two articles can be said to describe a deficiency in English language as a result of a weak education system in literature and media influence. George’s concern was mainly language quality while Virginia’s concern was lack of words to describe feelings which come with illness.. From the examples, he drew out various inaccurate uses of English such as dying metaphors, operators or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction (Orwell 3) and meaningless words (Orwell 4).

Both articles were concerned with giving a solution to the language problem. George’s article advised that people could only avoid using poor language if only they started thinking clearly. As a result, use of correct language would cause them to think more clearly (Orwell 1). Virginia argues that language experts have undermined coming up with words to describe illness feelings and there is need to have some people come up with words to help patients communicate. She complained, “But of all this daily drama of the body there is no record” (Woolf 10).

She complained that people always wrote about ideas from the mind but failed to write about the body. The Contrast of the Articles Virginia used remorseful tone while expressing the agony ill people experience as they try to communicate. The tone was meant for a particular audience who are mainly health care workers. For example, she explained that for a very ill person, “There is nothing ready made for him. He is forced to coin words himself” (Woolf 11). She explained that ill people have no one to speak out for them.

George on the other hand used an aggressive tone while describing how English language has lost its quality and loss of creativity in modern language. The aggressive tone reveals that the article was mainly written for unlimited audience including politicians. He gave an example of a sentence in Ecclesiastes where no other translation matched the original script in terms of creativity (Orwell 5). George criticized wrong usage of language such as dying metaphors (Orwell 2), operators, or verbal false